Workshop session three (15.20 - 16.20)

a. London Borough of Hackney – Local Strategic Partnership Public Service Promise
Chair - Rhian Gladman
Local Authority lead - Yvonne Parish, Development Manager, Public Service Promise, London Borough of Hackney

The London Borough of Hackney is working closely with their local public sector partners on the Local Strategic Partnership to improve frontline customer services across the local public sector. They are reviewing their physical property assets and have developed a Public Service Promise and a “No Wrong Door” approach to their shared customers.

Seventeen public sector partners have signed up to the promise including the Metropolitan Police service, Job Centre Plus, Careers Centre and Hackney Council. One of the aims is to ensure that customers receive a consistently high standard of customer service whichever partner organisation they approach. They have also introduced joint staff training for those in frontline roles to empower staff to deliver on these commitments.

A new customer service centre will open in the spring of 2010, reducing the number of service delivery locations and joining up local services for local citizens. The benefits of this work includes greater shared understand of the wider range of customers making it better for these customer to access the range of services they need. There are also potential financial savings when the new centre opens, as well as efficiency that will come as a result of a reduction in duplication of work, by bringing different agencies together so that they share physical facilities as well as share costs of marketing, training and development.

b. London Borough of Lambeth – Gracefield Gardens
Chair - Ernest Opuni
Local Authority lead - Matt Cooper, Head of Gracefield Gardens, Customer Services, London Borough of Lambeth

Lambeth’s Customer Services Strategy arose from the realisation that customers were unhappy with the services they received. They felt that services were too fragmented, not coordinated enough and were difficult to access and navigate. To address these issues the council developed a proposals for five Customer Service centres in prime locations across the borough. The centres are designed to improve access for all residents and make contact with the authority and its partners an effective and enjoyable experience.

Two of these centres are now open. At Gracefield Gardens, LBL is delivering a range of services with partners such as the local Primary Care Trust, Greater London Enterprise business advisory service, local GPs, NHS Health trainers, ‘Every pound counts’ benefits advisors, cashiers for rent, parking fines and council tax. The centre also provides ‘meet and greet’ staff specially trained to assist customers including helping them use the cutting edge technology available such as video walls, bespoke queuing systems, customer internet access points and ‘hot phone’ which links to Lambeth’s call centre. All customer interactions are logged on the council’s CRM providing improved intelligence on which to base further service innovation.

Customer satisfaction surveys at the Gracefield Gardens centre now show that 94% of customers were satisfied with the service they received, with an average waiting time of 8 minutes per enquiry. The centre provides out of office hours support to the community and improved access to a range of services. Staff have benefited from improved training and a customer focused culture and are actively involved in identifying development areas for themselves and the services they represent.

c. Developing the Business Case for Front Office Shared Services
Chair - Paul Conneely
Local Authority - Essex County Council

Developing the business case for a major change programme remains a challenging task for many local authorities, particularly so for projects focused on shared services and the front office. Existing guidance focuses on developing business cases in a single organisation or a partnership between similar organisations for similar services, e.g. back office shared services for IT or HR, whereas FOSS projects can involve numerous different agencies and a range of different services.

This workshop introduces practitioner guidance developed as part of FOSS 2009 that highlights effective practices in developing business cases for FOSS initiatives. The guidance is based on a synthesis of the lessons uncovered since FOSS research began in 2006, and a summary of the existing good practices documented by the OGC, 4ps, CLG, the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and the IDeA.

Based on the report, the workshop will review:

The workshop will be interactive and will seek to hear delegates’ experience of developing or contributing to business cases.

d. Tell Us Once
Chair - Mike Short
Local Authority lead - Mel Scott, Tell Us Once Liaison Manager, Department for Work and Pensions

Tell Us Once (TUO) is a major cross governmental pilot project that is aiming to make it possible for people to give their details once when reporting a birth or bereavement. These details can to be shared, with their consent, with the other appropriate public services. Currently this notification process requires the customer to make direct contact with several different agencies as well as a number of service areas within the local authority.

TUO is being led by Department for Work and Pensions, working closely with local government. A number of Local authorities are involved as pathfinders, including Tameside MBC, LB Southwark, Wolverhampton City Council, Rotherham MBC, Kent County Council and districts, and Lancashire County Council and districts.

This process has many positive benefits include a reduction in the number of avoidable and unavoidable contacts, more efficient process in terms of time, money and back office processes. Also the procedure is much improved in terms of customer wellbeing at what can be a very stressful time.

The FOSS case study looks at the overall project from a local authority perspective highlighting how these authorities have dealt with some of the key challenges including developing new ways of working and methods of capturing and sharing customer data across relevant agencies. In addition it examines how their experiences are being fed into the development of the case for TUO.